The Black Hills Revolt
by daccu65
Summary: Sometimes, in a civil war, there aren't clear cut good guys and bad guys. Why did the Black Hills revolt? Here's the story from a survivor.
1. Chapter 1

_Dear reader:_

 _Please note that I do not own the concept of WWZ, nor any of the characters. This story is not intended to generate revenue, it was simply for my enjoyment to write and hopefully, for your enjoyment to read. That said, I present my little tale..._

Prelude

 _Mr. President, I know that some members of your cabinet feel that the time you granted me to interview the subject of this report was time wasted. It is my belief that reading the transcript will prove that this time was both well spent and worth the other loss we sustained. Before I continue with this report, perhaps some background will be useful for future readers, who may not be familiar with the circumstances which led up to this issue._

 _During the Great Panic, when the U.S. Government retreated west of the Rocky Mountains, the majority of our population found itself stranded in what became known as the Grey Zone. In numerous areas, people banded together and attempted to survive the undead onslaught. One of the largest such enclaves, in area rather than population, was the Black Hills Region of South Dakota and Wyoming. Unlike most isolated areas which managed to survive the infestation, the Black Hills region wanted nothing to do with the U.S. Government, even going so far as to declare independence shortly before we initiated our offensive. The resulting campaign to pacify the Black Hills was brutal, bloody and ultimately costly for our efforts to retake our nation._

 _The losses we sustained and the damage we inflicted led me to question how a region as loyal and patriotic as the Black Hills could turn against our nation. The trials held for the captured members of the Black Hills Defense Force provided few answers, as the courts and tribunals were more interested in demonstrating swift and public retribution against those who would turn their backs upon their country than finding out just why they did so. Still, since many of the world's regions remain isolated by the undead hordes still infesting our planet, I was determined to find out why this battle took place, so that I could help avoid similar tragic incidents. It was only after the tribunal declared the death sentence that I obtained permission to interview the highest-ranking fighter to be captured alive. In return for his honest answers, the courts agreed to execute him quickly and privately, avoiding a public spectacle._

 _I am withholding the interviewee's name, as he has proven to be a highly controversial figure in the aftermath of the Black Hills revolt. As I do not wish to create a martyr, or bring public retribution upon his family, I shall refer to him as "Mr. M". Before the Great Panic, Mr. M had lived a quiet, productive life in Rapid City. At some time before this, he had served a single enlistment in one of the armed forces. As a leader in the Black Hills Defense Force, he gained a reputation for reliability and competence, rather that bravado and flair. His forces succeeded in holding off the undead hordes while sustaining minimal casualties. The commanders who found themselves fighting his forces during the conquest of the Black Hills report that while he was an unimaginative leader, he was competent and determined. It was with this background knowledge that I interviewed Mr. M. The following pages hold the transcripts of our interviews. Please learn from them whatever you can…_

Chapter One, Abandoned.

 _ **Despite the fact that my Marine guards assured me that Mr. M has been a model prisoner, I confess to some nervousness as they lead me into the stark room. The only furnishings are a single table with chairs on opposite sides. Before I can take a seat, a door on a wall opposite the one I entered opens to admit two more guards with Mr. M. The guards don't even bother shackling the prisoner, allowing me a few moments to study him. The only way that I can describe him is…average. Despite the remaining rebels' insistence that he is a hero and the prosecutor's efforts to portray him as a villain, he presents a very unremarkable appearance. His only distinguishing characteristic is his missing right arm.**_

"Disappointing, isn't it," Mr. M remarks, as the guards exit.

" **I don't understand."**

"According to the prosecutor, I'm a bigger threat to mankind than Adolf Hitler and Swine Flu combined. Instead, I look like some guy you'd see picking up birdseed at the local hardware store…at least a few years ago. I get the same look from everyone, the first time they see me." He offers a bitter chuckle, "You'd think someone who, and I quote, _turned upon his nation as it attempted to pull the human race from the depths of despair_ , would look a little more evil, don't you?"

" **I take it you disagree with the prosecutor's charges?"**

"And the court's findings," he agrees. "Of course, that doesn't matter now, does it?"

" **Please be seated."**

[Mr. M takes his chair.]

" **Do you understand the scope and purpose of this interview?"**

"You want to understand why I became a traitor," he replies. "You want to understand why I, and those who stood with me, decided to walk away from the U.S. government."

" **Correct, and do you know why I'm trying to determine this?"**

"I guess you want to make sure you don't screw up again," he shrugs. "Of course, does that mean you want to know how to be more careful with your propaganda…or actually change your actions?"

" **That isn't for you to question. We have a deal, are you going to honor it?"**

"Of course I will. What do you want to know?"

" **Let's start at the beginning, the great panic. The Black Hills region survived the panic in better shape than most places. Why was this?"**

"Pure dumb luck."

" **Elaborate," I instruct, after he makes no indication that he intends to give me a further explanation.**

"Fine," he grumbles. "I guess you could say that three things helped us to weather the storm better than most. The first was our population. Most of the Black Hills communities were small enough that the residents knew each other…at least casually. This meant that we knew each others daily routines, so when our neighbors started to get infected, we realized that something was wrong with them and checked on them. We were also small enough that the government's cover stories didn't quite ring true." He chuckles and shakes his head, "we aren't the smartest people in the world but we're not _**that**_ clueless. When you notice your neighbor hasn't left his house for a couple days, you go over to check on him. When you look in the window while you're walking up to his door and notice a body, you call the police. When the police show up with some suit tagging along, you take note of it. When they go in and you hear gunshots, you remember it. When more suits interview everyone in the neighborhood and give you some story about an epidemic, after you heard the shots, you know the suits are feeding you a bunch of crap. When you notice more cops, and more suits, entering more houses, you start to talk with your neighbors, friends and relatives."

" **So the small population was the key?"**

"We had a small population, but not too small. We weren't so small that we were overwhelmed when Zack showed up. I guess you could say that we were small enough to know something bad was happening before it was too late, and big enough to do something about it."

" **That's the first advantage. What's the second?"**

"A fairly large percentage of us were armed. I'm not saying that we were a bunch of Hollywood stereotyped survivalists; we weren't. A fairly large segment of the population hunted, indulged in occasional target shooting, or had done so at some time in the past. Because of this, a lot of us owned firearms, even if they were stored in a basement or attic and hadn't been fired in over a decade. A former marksman can become a current marksman much faster than someone who has never handled a firearm can. Don't get me wrong, we weren't a bunch of Rambo wannabes just looking for an excuse to start shooting. In reality, we were a bunch of people whose fathers, uncles and brothers had taught to handle firearms safely and effectively. Additionally, a fairly large percentage of the male population was a veteran of one of the armed services. It's a lot easier to organize a bunch of former soldiers into a paramilitary force than a bunch of folks who have never served in uniform. A lot of us were out of shape and had left military discipline behind, but it didn't take us long to snap back into shape when we needed to. When we finally realized what Zack was all about, it didn't take long for us to form armed bands, who were actually more dangerous to Zack than to each other."

" **Okay, familiarity and ownership with weapons. What's the third factor?"**

"Most residents lived a simple life, which made us just a little better equipped to handle the aftermath than most areas. I've read some of the reports from areas that were overrun and later rescued and I believe the findings…that for every person Zack killed, at least fifty people died of starvation, dehydration, disease, exposure…you name it. Zack was bad enough but when he broke down our society, we found out that we weren't prepared to live outside of a society."

" **And you were prepared?"**

"I'm not saying we were prepared…I'm saying that we weren't as unprepared as a lot of other areas happened to be. Put it this way, a plumber who plants a garden in his back yard every summer, goes fishing every once in a while and maintains his own house is a lot better prepared for that kind of breakdown than an investment banker who lives in a high-rise condo, hires professionals to fix his possessions and whose idea of a good time is visiting an art exhibit. Most of the residents were blue collar sorts, which meant that even those who didn't have a job that gave them useful survival skills still had to do a lot of their own upkeep…which was valuable experience in and of itself. Even those of us with a white-collar job worked directly with the blue-collar bunch. We managed the workers…we didn't manage someone who managed someone who managed the workers. This meant that most of us were prepared to handle the tools and do the work that needed to be done when the electricity went off and the grocery trucks stopped running."

" **The proper population size, familiarity with and ownership of firearms, and basic skills. Do you think that's what allowed the Black Hills region to survive more or less intact?"**

"There was more to it, but those were the big reasons."

" **In that case, why don't you describe the great panic and the events that led up to it?"**

"It's a pretty long story."

" **We have a pretty long time."**

"Okay, where do you want me to start?"

" **At the point that you understood the gist of the outbreak."**

Mr. M squirms in his seat for a short time, with his eyes closed in deep thought. "Okay," he finally says. "There are both advantages and disadvantages to living in flyover country. The disadvantages are that when it comes time for distribution, we're pretty much at the end of the list. The population is small, so it doesn't make economic sense to…say, play a concert in Rapid City as opposed to Denver. This extends to government action, as well. Both South Dakota and Wyoming only had three electoral votes, so it didn't make much political sense to make sure that…for example, Lead, Deadwood and Newcastle receive prompt shipments of the latest flu vaccine. All of that _miracle vaccine, Phalanx_ (he chuckles bitterly when stating the name) went to the population centers. What sane politician would distribute the life-saving medicine around the Black Hills, when the residents of New York, Chicago, Los Angles and Miami…as well as their votes and dollars, needed the reassurance?"

"Of course, that same delay can become an advantage," he continues. "Bad movies flop before they get to the local theater, one-hit wonder entertainers burn out before booking the nearest showground, quack medicine usually gets exposed before any of the locals start to depend on it and legitimate doctors usually get a grip on various diseases before they reach the backwater locations. In a way, the Solanum virus ran the same course as HIV."

" **How was that?"**

"I'm old enough to remember the earliest days of the AIDS scare. Back then, nobody knew what it was or how it spread, only that it was a death sentence. Nationwide, blood banks were in crises; not because donors were worried about contracting it but because they were saving their blood for friends and family, in case one of them needed an emergency donation. Nobody trusted the blood supply. By the time the first case of AIDS was confirmed in South Dakota, the CDC had figured out that it was spread by bodily fluids and that certain lifestyles placed one at greater risk to get it. By the time we in the Black Hills _had_ to face it, we had a pretty good idea about _how_ to face it. The same thing happened with Zack. By the time the first zombies showed up in the Black Hills, we knew that African Rabies was neither African nor Rabies, we knew that there was no cure and we knew that there was no vaccine. Furthermore, we knew that our own government had known that the vaccine was useless against the real problem, but had lied to try to keep us under control."

" **So you didn't have a panic?" I asked, both because I was curious and I wanted to head off a possible anti-government rant.**

"The Hell we didn't," he snorts. "We just didn't have as big of a panic as most other places did. Part of that came from being in the center of the country, we saw the news and knew that all hell was breaking loose in pretty much every direction, so there was no place to run to. When that happens, you might as well hunker down and try to deal with whatever comes your way."

" **But you still had a panic."**

"I was getting to that! We had refugees in the area, following Interstate 90 and just running away from the outbreaks. The funny thing about the Black Hills, we were sort of a meeting point; the folks running away from the cities around the Great Lakes and the folks running away from the cities on the West Coast met in the Black Hills. Now, the refugees were scared, not dumb, so once they saw more refugees ahead of them, running the other way; they realized that no place was safe and decided to stop running. The governor called out the guard and they did their level best to set up camps for everyone, but life was pretty primitive for anyone caught on the road. Of course, there were a few infected folks in with the rest."

" **And that set off the panic?"**

"Keep in mind that our local authorities were overwhelmed by all the people and that the folks in the camps were pretty shook up, as well. Every time someone saw some stranger with a bruise or cut, they reported an infection. The authorities couldn't investigate all the reports, so it was inevitable that some actual cases got missed, especially when the infected parties, and their friends and families, tried to keep it hidden. When Zack appeared in the crowded camps, he found plenty of prey."

" **So the camps became slaughterhouses?"**

"Not by a long shot! Whenever Zack got to his feet, everyone around him heard his moan and ran like hell. The few guardsmen available were usually able to move in and take him down before he could get anybody…but not always. I can't really blame the folks who decided it would be safer in the towns and stampeded out of the camps to get there. I can't blame them, but it made things rougher for everyone."

" **Why was that?"**

"It set us against each other. There were more infected folks with those who charged into our towns and when they got back to their feet, they attacked everyone, locals and refugees. We blamed the refugees for this, saying they had brought the plague into our towns. On the other hand, the refugees blamed us for putting them in squalid, dangerous camps. Both sides had good points and remember just how scared everyone was. There had been some…violent incidents…on both sides. Tensions just continued to rise. I can still remember the night before it all broke loose. Three or four Zacks had risen in a camp outside Blackhawk. The refugees broke loose, got into Rapid City and refused to return to the camp. The next morning, the police, guard and a local 'vigilance committee' were about to try to force them back. It was a very dark time."

" **That was the panic?"**

"No, that was the last straw that set us up for the panic. There we were, a bunch of angry refugees and a bunch of angry locals, standing each other down. We were already tossing bricks and rocks and we all knew that it was just a prelude to the main event. Right when it was all about to go down, it happened."

" **It?"**

"The Battle of Yonkers," he shakes his head and offers bitter smile. "I have to hand it to the cop, private citizen, or whoever decided to televise it. If that battle had gone down the way it was supposed to, it just might have stopped the brawl." Mr. M fidgets a little more, collecting his thoughts. "You see, the main brawl was about to go down near a video billboard. Somebody fed one of the networks' broadcasts onto it. Sure enough, the whole crowd started staring at the growing hoard of Zacks approaching the Army's lines. We forgot about the brawl; heck, we even cheered when all the heavy fire started shredding through the walking dead. Even when Zack kept coming, we knew we couldn't lose. The Army would stop Zack cold, or maybe fall back to another line and let him have it again. When our boys broke…we…"

" **Well?" I prompt, when it becomes clear that he won't continue without direction.**

"It all hit the fan," he tells me, looking me right in the eye. "Suddenly, we weren't Americans anymore; we were a bunch of terrified locals and refugees who knew doomsday was all around us and there was no way to stop it. Some of the locals and refugees tore into each other but most of us just flat out ran. Some thought that the best idea was to stay put and try to fort up. Some thought the best idea was to run west, since the worst was in the east. Some thought it would be a good idea to run east, to where the military must be getting ready for another round."

" **Which were you?"**

"I wanted to stay," he answers. "But you have to know, for the next couple of days, it didn't really matter. All of us started looting and stealing, grabbing what we thought we'd need for whatever we were going to do. I wasn't any better, I ran home and grabbed my wheelbarrow, can you believe it? I grabbed my wheelbarrow, ran to the nearest store and filled up on canned food. I was lucky that the police or the guard didn't shoot me…they shot a few folks…but they were so overwhelmed by everything that…like I said, it was a dark time."

" **Was there violence?"**

"Yes, but not as much as you'd think. Like I said before, most of the communities were small…Rapid City was the largest town and it had a pre-panic population of less than 70,000. That meant that once you got back to your neighborhood, your neighbors knew you and you were safe. The real violence took place when we fought over whatever was left in the stores and whenever a couple of idiots decided to start preying on others. Neighborhood watches…armed neighborhood watches, appeared pretty fast."

" **How long did this burst of lawlessness last?"**

"Three days…but it seemed like a lot longer. The local city governments knew that they didn't have the manpower to rein it in, so they waited us out. After three days, everyone who wanted to run for it had left and everyone who wanted to fort up had grabbed everything they thought they could use. That's when our local officials took action."

" **A crackdown?"**

"Not at all, they did something a lot smarter. They realized that state and national governments were about to collapse and that they would be on their own. Even during the panic, the city officials were talking with each other. When things calmed down, they ordered everybody back to work."

"I'm serious," he continues, seeing my incredulous expression. "It didn't matter if you worked at a fast food place, a quarry, a lumberyard or a retail store. It didn't even matter if the place had been looted or torn down. On the fourth day after Yonkers, everyone went back to work or risked getting arrested."

" **What did this accomplish?"**

"At the time, I didn't think it would accomplish anything but it did several things. They sent assessors around to find out just who was still around, what skills they had and what resources were available. It was easier for the assessors to visit the businesses than individual homes.

" **What about your families? If there were zombies about, weren't you afraid to leave them home alone?"**

"Of course," he shrugs. "But the phones were still working, so I called all the employees and invited everyone to bring their dependents in with them. We didn't have any work to do those first few days, so we spent our time converting a section of our warehouse into a fairly comfortable waiting room. After that, we set up a sturdy, chain link fence so the kids would have a place to play outside."

" **Outside? You let kids play outside with zombies loose?"**

"You have to remember that we weren't facing hordes yet," he counters. "And Zack isn't like a thinking predator. A mountain lion or a coyote will wait until the kids are unattended before attacking. Zack doesn't think; he just lumbers after his prey. On the few occasions when one got near our playground, it charged but it couldn't get through the fence. The adults had plenty of time to get the kids inside before grabbing a firearm and doing the appropriate thing. After the first couple of zombies tried to break in, we realized that we didn't even need the firearms."

" **You just let them stand at the fence?"**

"No, we just didn't waste ammunition," he smiles. "I've seen your military's lobotomizer and I've read about some pole-arm over in Asia, the Shaolin Spade. These are supposed to be the greatest weapons in the world for fighting Zack. Well, I have my own entry to that contest, the combination of a chain link fence and a simple pitchfork. What's best is that after Zack's down, you have something to move him to the grave without even touching him."

"It was that easy?"

"Hard to believe, isn't it? Of course, these were the early days but it worked. It wasn't long before playgrounds, enclosed by chain link fences and attended by a single adult, sprang up everywhere."

" **What else did the local governments do, after the panic?"**

They went through what was left of the camps and found out just what skills everyone there happened to have. After a few days, they moved the refugees out of the camps and into abandoned homes in the towns. They also had the refugees show up at businesses that could use their skills."

" **Wasn't there resentment?" I ask, "after all, they were taking the locals' homes and jobs."**

"A fairly large percentage of our population had already run off to the west," he answers. "Even with the refugees that stayed, or were stranded with us, we still only had about half of our pre-panic population. Okay, there was a little resentment but we realized that it was better to have somebody living in and maintaining those abandoned homes. Besides, there was a lot of work to do."

" **Work?" I ask. "Didn't the economy collapse?"**

"Not exactly. You see, the local governments spent the chaos time putting a framework emergency plan together. We were now being paid in work credits, rather than currency. It wasn't an easy transition but we managed to do it. More than anything else, we needed something to do…something that told us we were getting ready to face what had to be coming our way. Being put to work gave us something we all needed…the idea that we were accomplishing something."

" **What could you do?"**

"For one thing, we collected and cataloged all of the assets we had. Much like you did west of the Rockies, we went around and figured out what we had and gathered it so it wouldn't get looted. We also identified the vital businesses and employees."

" **I thought that the Black Hills economy was mostly based upon tourism and agriculture."**

"Mostly, but not exclusively," Mr. M informs me. "We had a large cement plant and several ammunition factories. In addition, we had a couple of technical schools and an engineering college with a small, but functional, chemical manufacturing plant. One of the first things we did was identify these vital facilities and make sure they were converted to operate on natural gas, the only fuel source we had in abundance. The next step was to use our limited supply of automotive parts to convert as many vehicles as possible to operate on natural gas." Mr. M offers an embarrassed grin, "I've never been a good mechanic, so I can't tell you much about that."

" **What were you doing at this time?"**

"I wound up leading a small group that visited outlying farms and ranches. We would make sure the farmers and ranchers knew what was happening and offer them sanctuary in the nearest city. Most of them came along, even though a lot of them wanted a day or two to settle their affairs. We recorded the ones who needed some time and the ones that decided to stay put."

" **Stay put? Didn't they understand what was about to happen?"**

"Of course," Mr. M shrugs. "But they thought they'd be safer away from the population centers."

" **And you let them stay?"**

"We weren't about to tell anybody what they could or couldn't do. We had never been through a zombie infestation before, so for all we knew the isolated farms would be safer than a city. Anyway, we recorded all the resources found on all of the farms and ranches and moved on. About this time, we were encountering the occasional zombie. Most of them were wandering along the roads but a few were stumbling through the fields and forests. The local farmers and ranchers were taking care of most of them."

" **Local farmers and ranchers were eliminating the same infestation that routed the Army?"**

"Of course not! This wasn't an oncoming horde like Yonkers, it was a handful of Zacks; former refugees and a few locals that had been infected."

" **But still, peaceful farmers and ranchers were able to hold their own against the enemy that was overrunning the major cities?"**

"Didn't you hear what I said earlier? We had a small population, so it wasn't hordes of undead swarming over the fields. Besides that, these country folk benefited from the carnage in the cities. Back when Zack was running roughshod over New York and Dallas, nobody really understood what he was. That was Zack's only real advantage, the surprise factor. By the time Zack showed up in western South Dakota, we had learned from the millions of deaths in the urban areas. We knew we had to go for the head.

" **Still," I point out. "The undead overran urban areas, whose residents were hardened by rough city life. You're talking about…"**

"Yokels?" He interrupts. "Bumpkins? Hillbillies? Don't be shy; I've heard almost all of 'em. You're buying into the Hollywood version of the rural population; hard working but slow witted. Well, have you ever thought about what a rancher goes through?"

" **I don't understand."**

"Okay, I'll explain. A rancher has to work his butt off to keep his stock alive. He's there at the birth…or at least shortly after it. While his animals are growing, he has to feed them and protect them from the weather, predators and disease. He never gets a break; at any time any of his livestock need him, he has to be there to do anything it takes to keep them healthy and growing. Most farmers keep some livestock, so they go through the same thing."

" **I still don't understand."**

"After going through all of this; after putting in time and effort that's closer to raising a child than doing a job, he has to let his animals go. He has to sell them to make his living and he knows they aren't going to become pets somewhere, they're going to be killed, slaughtered and turned into food. So, _Mister Educated, Sophisticated, Urban Man_ , what do you think happens when someone like that; someone who spends his life pouring his effort and emotion into something that he's going to have to kill, comes face to face with what used to be his neighbors?"

" **He does what he needs to do," I reply.**

"And he's able to live with himself after he does it," Mr. M agrees. "Hollywood seemed to think that Farmer Bob and Rancher Bill were idiots, because they didn't drive sports cars, wear the latest fashions or carry smart phones. The fact of the matter is that both of them were so focused on substance that they didn't have time for style. When society broke down, substance proved to be a lot more valuable. Still, there weren't very many farmers and ranchers out there. Later, when Zack started swarming, these folks either retreated to the cities or were overrun.

" **When did that happen?"**

"After a couple of weeks," Mr. M fidgets some more, looking very uncomfortable. "A couple of other things happened between the panic and the first swarms."

" **Such as…" I prompt.**

"First of all, the Air Force evacuated the local Air Force Base. They tried to keep it a secret but too many of us worked on the base and too many of them lived in our towns. We knew that the big transport planes landing and leaving were carrying the service personnel and their dependents away. I think that's when it really set in that our national government was bugging out and leaving us on our own."

" **What else?"**

"The Feds also nationalized a couple of the local guard units and evacuated them, as well. This one didn't go as well."

" **Why not?"**

"There wasn't any plan to evacuate their families, and most of the guardsmen didn't want to leave them behind. Not only that, but the guardsmen were locals and a lot of them wanted to stay and face whatever came with the rest of us. Still, orders were orders, so most of them formed up the vehicle convoy and headed off west. We were mad as hell, since we considered the guard to be a local asset, but we didn't have much time to whine about it. A day or two after the guard left, the Feds sent a radio message, telling us that they had spotted a swarm moving in from the east."

" **Your first challenge?"**

"In more ways than one," he agrees, after squirming a little more. "We didn't just have to worry about stray zombies, we had to organize ourselves and get ready for an actual swarm. Fortunately, it turned out to be a fairly small swarm and we had plenty of warning. We grabbed every vehicle we could fuel and rolled out. Of course, it took us a day or two to organize ourselves, so we ran into the leading edge around the town of Wall. It didn't go very well."

" **Describe what went wrong."**

"Pretty much what went wrong at the Battle of Yonkers, but on a smaller scale. Our sharpshooters took care of the leading ghouls without much trouble, but Zack just kept coming and coming! By the time the dense swarm reached us, we had built a barricade of dead Zacks across the interstate, but the increased group just walked around it and kept coming on. After a couple of hours, we were running low on ammunition and the ghouls started to show up on our flanks. We nearly had a panic before a commander…and I won't say his name in case he's still alive…managed to get us under control. He got us together and had us fall back, to the Cheyenne River."

" **What did that accomplish?"**

"It bought him the time he needed to come to grips with the way we were going to have to fight. It took Zack the better part of a day to follow us from what was left of Wall and reach the river. By that time, we had built two fences, one on each side of the Cheyenne, and had received additional ammunition from Rapid City. He sent roving patrols to the north and south, to make sure we wouldn't be outflanked, and divided the rest of us into two battalions. The first battalion set up on the east side of the river and was the first to take on Zack. This time, it went much better."

" **Describe how this went differently."**

"First of all, our commander ordered us…I was in the first battalion…to let Zack come in a lot closer. Back at Wall, we cut loose from way too far out and wasted a lot of ammunition. He also kept tighter control of us. When we fought at Wall, the guys with shotguns ran forward and actually got in the way of the riflemen. Now, only a handful of us had shotguns and they were only to use them if Zack popped up really close, where we weren't expecting him to be. Of course, the smartest thing our commander did was divide us up."

" **What did this accomplish?"**

"It kept us from wearing ourselves out. The second battalion was able to rest up while we held Zack off on the east bank. Anyway, Zack came stumbling on down the interstate and we let him come in a lot closer before opening up. At the shorter ranges, we were more accurate and our ammunition held out much longer. We kept up the firing for over four hours before the swarm threatened to get around and over our fence. The commander had us form up and march across the interstate bridge, leading Zack into the second battalion's kill zone. Of course, Zack always follows the most direct path to warm bodies, so most of the horde followed us onto the bridge."

" **I take it that the second battalion was able to finish off the hoard?"**

"Without much trouble," Mr. M nods. "We had both worn it down and drawn it into closer quarters on the east bank. When Zack finally breached the fence, he was all clustered together on the bridge. While we were fighting, the second battalion piled hay onto the bridge. Half an hour after we retreated across, almost all that was left of the hoard was backed up on it. That's when we ignited the hay and burned off most of the remaining swarm. After that, it was just a matter of finishing off the few that were in the river, before burying the ones who hadn't been caught in the fire. It was afternoon before we could leave the battle site and return to Rapid City. That's when we caught some bad news."

" **What bad news was that?"**

"What was left of the National Guard convoy had returned. They reported that Zack was swarming the roads to the west, so there was no escape to the safe zone. We were now on our own, an island of life in a sea of Zacks."

 _ **At this time, the guards arrived and told me that the day's interview time had expired. They led Mr. M back into the prison while I returned to my room to review my notes for the next day's interview.**_


	2. Chapter 2

**INTERVIEW 2: ALONE**

 _The guards usher me into the same room for the second day. Mr. M is already present and seated by the time I arrive. The guards quickly leave us alone._

" **At the conclusion of yesterday's interview," I begin, taking my seat. "You described the events leading up to the Black Hills' panic. I still find it incredible that your small population was able to hold out when more numerous groups were overrun."**

"That would be our isolation," Mr. M informs me. "Most people who think of our siege picture a swarm of undead constantly trying to break into our cities. This wasn't the case. While the occasional ghoul showed up every day or so, the swarms were rare. Instead, we knew that there were lots of Zacks between the safe zone and us. If we tried to leave our safe haven, we would be vulnerable to triggering swarms that could overrun us. Besides that, the land around the Black Hills is open, so we were usually able to see the swarms far enough out to do something about them."

Mr. M's expression darkens when he makes this last statement.

" _ **From the look on your face, doing something about the swarms led to where you are today," I comment.**_

"I'll get to that," he tells me, curtly. "If I get ahead of myself, I'll skip over some of the information you want." He shifts in his chair again, "fuel was an issue, since we had burned up most of our gasoline fighting at Wall and we were using most of the vehicles we had converted to run on natural gas to collect resources. Manning the foot patrols was a hard choice; if we kept the patrols small, they were vulnerable to being overrun. If we made them large enough to defend themselves, they drained the manpower we needed to collect resources. That's when I took the first step towards a leadership position. I suggested that we use bicycles."

" _ **Nobody had thought of that?" I was stunned. "We started using bicycles almost immediately, in the safe zone."**_

"We used 'em to get around, as well," he chuckles. "My idea took it one step further; we used them to haul logistics on patrols. You see, there was this homeless guy that used to operate near my old place of employment. This guy collected recyclables for cash and built a trailer, out of electrical conduit, for his bike. Over the course of a couple of years, that trailer got more and more complicated. Eventually, he had separate bins for the various items he collected, as well as a covered sleeping area. When we needed to be able to cover ground and haul some supplies, without using fuel, I remembered this. Our first trailers were just modified infant carriers, but it didn't take long for us to make ones more suited to what we needed. In a matter of weeks, the Black Hills Bicycle Infantry was in full operation."

" _ **This simple idea propelled you into a leadership position?" I found the statement hard to believe.**_

It was the time that it happened, as well," Mr. M shrugs. "While our local officials were doing their jobs, there was still a great deal of unease. Keep in mind that I was already a minor officer and this simple idea made me look a great deal smarter than I really was. Actually, I'm proud of the idea. We built four, large trailers, rigged with quick releases, for each twelve-soldier patrol. While each trooper wore his or her backpack, we loaded the trailers with tents, food, medicine and other supplies. Even with the trailers, the patrols could maintain a steady speed of almost ten miles per hour."

" **Enough to outrun the zombies?"**

"That was secondary," Mr. M counters. "The real advantage was that it kept the population linked together. Look, Sturgis is about twenty-eight miles from Rapid City. On foot, a patrol would take a full day and a piece of the next to cover that distance. If you were on a bike without a trailer, you would be in trouble if one of the troopers became injured or seriously ill. Even with the trailers, a ride from Rapid City to Sturgis only took a few hours. If one of your buddies got hurt or sick, you just emptied one of the trailers out, put him in it and ran him into the nearest town. Sure, we still had telephone and radio communication between the communities but there was something comforting about knowing that living, breathing people were regularly traveling between them."

"On a tactical level, the bikes were great," he continues. "Four patrol members had bikes without trailers and acted as mobile outposts, giving the rest of the patrol some warning. If they ran into a Zack or two, they'd pick 'em off and report back to the rest of the patrol. If the outrider ran into something he couldn't handle, he'd hightail it back to the rest of the patrol. If the trouble was too big for the whole patrol, everyone could drop their trailers and haul tail. The big advantage it gave us was strategic flexibility."

" **Being able to outrun the hordes?" I prompt.**

"The increased speed was great," he answers. "But we used it in a way that wasn't all that obvious. Two weeks after we managed to get all of our fighters on bicycles, we got word from the Feds that two more hordes were heading our way. One was down in Nebraska had just turned north onto Highway 79. The other was around Gillette, moving east along Interstate 90. It looked like they were about the same distance from us, so they would hit us from two sides at about the same time."

" **Wait," I interrupt. "What do you mean that the horde turned north onto Highway 79? The zombies don't turn onto secondary roads."**

"They do if they're pursuing something," he growls at me. "And trust me, I'll be describing that in detail…when I get to it."

" **Very well, continue."**

"Okay, it looked like Zack was going to converge on us, and we didn't want to handle the combined horde. The bicycles, and the ability to move quickly with supplies, meant that we didn't have to. Since the terrain between the Black Hills and Gillette isn't very hospitable, we loaded up and moved south. We met the southern horde at the Cheyenne River, outside of Hot Springs. It wasn't easy, but with the help of the locals from Hot Springs we managed to repeat what we had done west of Wall. We met the hoard on the south bank, set up a fence and spent almost a full day shooting up Zack. After that, we retreated across the Highway 79 Bridge and repeated the process. We actually ran out of ammunition. Fortunately, the ammo held out until there was only a handful of Zacks left and we had a fence between them and us. We were able to finish them off with our modified pitchforks and burn the bodies. We also used some grappling hooks to drag the river, pulling out a few more Zacks."

His face now darkens, "we also pulled out a bicycle, one of those fancy, titanium things; light as a feather, stronger than steel and more expensive than gold. At the time, we didn't think much of it. We tossed it in with the rest of our supplies and headed back north."

" **To intercept the hoard approaching from Wyoming?"**

"Exactly!" Mr. M nods. "While we were fighting in the southern hills, the folks in Rapid City and the northern hills had been just as busy. The locals in the Rapid City area had made and scrounged enough ammunition to replace what we had burned off outside of Hot Springs. They had also made more of our modified pitchforks. We took two days to rest, re-organize and maintain before heading northwest. In the meantime, everyone from the northern hills communities who could make the trip had been converging on Sundance."

" **That's where you met the other horde?"**

"Yes," he nods. "But we didn't have a major river to help us. This one turned into a running battle. We didn't have the intelligence that your force did at Hope, so we had to make sure we wouldn't get overrun. Instead of forming a battle square, we formed two double lines; the first was five miles west of Sundance and the other was five miles east. We also sent companies, on bicycles, out to the north and south. The western force made contact just after noon and held out until nightfall. Once it started to get dark, my bicycle infantry held off the horde for another two hours while the western force retreated back east."

" **And joined up with the eastern force?"**

"No, they went even further," Mr. M corrects me. "They marched another five miles past the eastern force and set up another defense. Our commander told us that we were a boxer fighting a brawler; that we could beat Zack as long as we kept him at arm's length but we were in trouble if he surrounded us. It almost happened to the eastern force."

" **I assume that zombies closed in from the flanks."**

"You assume correct. Our bicycle infantry proved its worth; the outriders not only gave the eastern force enough warning to retreat from what could have been a deathtrap, they were able to draw most of the zombies towards the defenses, so the initial force, the one that I was with, didn't get engaged at the same time. The eastern force, which was now the western force, retreated east, crossed our defense, marched another five miles and set up again. We fought another six-hour engagement before a swarm started to close in from the north. The commander called the retreat, the infantry formed up and marched east, we bicycle boys held out for another hour before following them. We just kept fighting and retreating until we used Zack up."

" **How many times did you retreat?" I ask.**

"My force, the initial west force, retreated four times," he tells me. "The other group, the initial east force, retreated three times. We were willing to trade the space, since we could always re-take what we gave up."

" **Why did you lead the undead along Interstate 90? Didn't some of the roads interior to the Black Hills, such as Highway 16 between Custer and Newcastle, offer you better cover and a more direct path?"**

"I see you've studied the maps," Mr. M offers a short smile. "It would seem to make sense, but we wanted wide, clear space to deal with Zack. Don't get me wrong, if you're on your own and spot a Zack or two, you want to take advantage of cover and rough terrain. On the other hand, when you're teamed up with fifteen hundred of your best friends, and you're facing a swarm of maybe ten times that number, you want plenty of clear space to see them coming and a good, wide road to maneuver."

" **A final question about your tactics. Why did you engage the hordes at all, when you had sufficient warning? Couldn't you have sent a few men out, on the bicycles, to divert them away from your homes?"**

"We thought about that." Mr. M's voice is cold and he is clearly struggling to control his temper. "The way we saw it, there were two problems with that. The first was that we couldn't be sure that Zack wouldn't still track us down, somehow. Remember, back then we didn't know if Zack operated strictly on sound and sight, or if he might catch our scent or even have some other senses that we didn't understand. Let's take the horde we dealt with outside of Hot Springs, as an example. One man on a bicycle could have met it somewhere around Oelrichs, picked off several of the lead walkers and got the rest to chase him. He then could have pedaled to the east along Highway 18 and outdistanced them before turning north again and returning home. The problem was that we didn't know if somehow, Zack could have tracked his turn. In that case, we might have wound up fighting Zack in the southeast of Rapid City, rather than in the open country along Highway 79."

" **You said that this was one of two considerations. What was the second?"**

"We had the decency to realize that we might have just turned Zack away from us, but sent him after someone else!" Mr. M's answer is filled with barely suppressed rage. "That was a consideration you never seemed to have! Or maybe I'm lying, you knew exactly where you were sending Zack, didn't you?"

" **Mr. M," I point out. "I was, and continue to be, ignorant of the strategy and tactics my government utilized to fight the undead infestation. I have heard some complaints about how my government behaved, but no coherently presented issues and no proof."**

"You'll get your proof," Mr. M assures me. "More than you want to hear. In the meantime, why don't we stay on the topic? I don't want to miss anything by skipping around."

" **That seems wise," I agree. "Now, you had just defeated the converging threats. If my studies are accurate, that was the last, major action you faced that year."**

"You're correct," he nods. "But we performed a minor action that would have major consequences later on. Winter came early that year, and it was getting very cold, very fast. We were able to maintain natural gas lines from Newcastle in most of our buildings, and use more natural gas to generate enough electricity to keep our furnace blowers operating, but that was about it. About the time it started to freeze at night, we received a message from the Pine Ridge Reservation. They were out of fuel oil and the nationwide electrical grid was off line. Put bluntly, it looked like a lot of their population was either going to freeze or starve in the winter. The last major action the bicycle infantry performed was to escort most of the population from the reservation into the towns in the Black Hills."

"Shortly after we got everyone settled in, winter settled in with a vengeance. Zack froze solid, so there weren't any more attacks but we now had to worry about staying alive. The few vehicles we had converted to operate on natural gas wouldn't carry everyone to the save zone and they couldn't carry enough fuel to make it, anyway. Sure, a few hardy souls could probably make the trip on foot but what about the children, or the infirm? Like it or not, we were stuck where we were, an island of the living in a sea of the dead."

 **At this time, the guards return and inform me that the time allotted for the second interview is finished. I bid farewell to Mr. M and return to my quarters, to organize my thoughts for the next session.**

 **INTERVIEW 3: BETRAYED**

 **I arrived at the interview room on my third day before Mr. M arrived. I took the opportunity to review my notes from my previous two sessions, so that I could be better prepared to ask meaningful questions after Mr. M completed his story. I was so engrossed in this research that I failed to notice the guards usher Mr. M into the room. He politely cleared his throat to gain my attention.**

"Won't you be seated?" I said gesturing towards his chair.

 **To my surprise, the guards fit a chain around Mr. M's chest and lock it to a sturdy metal ring on the floor.**

"A change of procedure," my subject waves at the chain. "Someone reviewed security procedures and didn't want to leave me, unfettered an alone, with a potential hostage. They were going to handcuff me to the table, but someone pointed out that this would immobilize my only hand, which would apparently be cruel and unusual punishment."

" **Is there anything I can do to change this treatment?"**

"I doubt it," he shrugs, dropping his hand to his side. "And what does it matter? There's only a few more days before we're finished." He squirms a little in his chair, getting comfortable.

To my surprise, and irritation, the guards do not leave.

" **Gentlemen, I'll let you know if I require assistance," I inform them.**

"Change of orders," one of them tells me, in a polite yet firm voice. "We are to remain with you during the interview, from now on."

" **I was promised unrestricted access to this subject!" I protest. "That isn't possible with you hanging over him!"**

"Don't take it out on the troops," Mr. M interrupts. "They've got their orders. Making life rough for them by complaining isn't going to get you what they want. I won't hold back on the interview."

" _ **Are you certain you can provide me with full disclosure?" I ask. "Aren't you concerned about retribution?"**_

"What are they going to do, label me a heretic or a traitor?" Mr. M counters. " Are they going to make my sentence worse? Don't worry about me!"

" **Very well," I agree. "At the conclusion of our last interview you described evacuating the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation to the Black Hills communities prior to your first winter. I'd like you to take up the tale from that point."**

"The first winter was the roughest," he begins, scratching at his chin and looking upward. "But in a way, it was best that it was rough, since it forced us to work together to survive. It was blasted cold and we didn't have enough fuel to keep all of our houses warm, so we were forced to abandon most of the smaller homes and move multiple families into larger houses. I can't say that everyone was warm all of the time, but we could get by. Truth be told, were were a lot closer to 'comfortable' than we were to 'surviving', if you take my meaning."

" **I think I understand," I answer. "What about the food situation?"**

"Roughly the same," he shrugs again. "We had the canned and dry goods from stores and warehouses in the area, added with grain and livestock from the outlying farms and ranches. We had to ration, but we had enough so everyone ate somewhere between adequately and well; and we still had enough to set aside seed and stock for the next spring. Like I said, there was a lot of work to be done, so we didn't have time to dwell on the food and housing situation too much."

" **Work?" I ask. "I thought that the dead froze up in the winter."**

"They did," he replies. "But you always have occasional thaws during the winter and Zack became active during those times. In addition, we all knew that the dead would revive come spring. Wintertime was the best time to finish our defenses."

" **According to the reports I read, you didn't have a continuous wall," I protest. "What sort of defenses do you mean?"**

"Of course we didn't have a continuous wall," he actually laughs. "The Black Hills is about one hundred miles north to south and fifty east to west. There was no way we could build a Zack-proof fence around that mass. We couldn't even build fences around the towns. Instead, we built kill zones around the area, where we could draw them when they attacked. We also built a series of watchtowers and equipped them with pedal-powered radios. Building these things during the winter wasn't very pleasant, but it was better than building them with the dead breathing down our necks. When the blizzards became too severe, there was work in the towns to do."

" **Such as, " I prompt.**

"We had to be ready to produce our own food, come spring," he tells me. "And the government in exile warned us that the summers were probably going to be short. We needed a head start on planting, so we built as many greenhouses as we could. When spring got close, we were able to plant our vegetables early. We also had to clear fields and build irrigation systems on a massive scale."

" _ **Irrigation? The summers were wet as well as short."**_

"True," he admits. "But you never have the right amount of water, when you're growing things. During a normal year, close to perfect was good enough for water on the pants but with our shortened growing season, we had to keep the water level as close to perfect as we possibly could. Like I said, we had to get ready and everybody understood we were going to starve if we weren't prepared."

" **So it was one big, happy, hard working family?" I admit my question was somewhat sarcastic.**

"Not by a long shot!" The smile he favors me with tells me he knows I'm pressing for full disclosure. "Look, we didn't all get along but were were so butt tired by the end of each day that very few of us had the energy to make trouble with each other. Like I said earlier, Zack made a small appearance every time we got a thaw, so we all understood it was stick together or die. Bottom line up front; for that winter we were always just a little chilly...but not freezing. We were always just a little peckish...but not starving. We were always just a little crowded...but not thronged into every building that still stood. We had our tussles and arguments; even the occasional brawl, but no riots or revolts."

He pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath before continuing, "things got better when spring came."

" **Explain."**

"Zack showed up again," Mr. M says with a somewhat mischievous grin.

" **And this helped how?" I demand.**

"We had an external threat," he chuckles. "Actually, a couple of them. We had Zack, famine and a decaying infrastructure to deal with. We all knew that we had to fight Zack, produce food and maintain ourselves."

" **So the additional stress enhanced civic cooperation?"**

"It shouldn't be hard to believe. Nothing brings a population together like an external threat. You should know this."

" **Why?"**

"As far as I can tell, it's the oldest trick in the politician's book."

" **I'm not a politician."**

"But you work for one!" He favors me with a conspiratorial smile. "I know you're a staff member but you've helped your bosses enough to know at least a little about manipulating the masses. Hitler used the Jews, Roosevelt and Churchill used the Axis and we used Zack, just like the President did, at first."

" _ **But the undead were a legitimate threat!" I protest. "They still are!"**_

"That makes them a better outside threat," he shrugs in return. "You don't have to make crap up. Back on point, we had to deal with Zack, famine and raiders. To combat these threats, we had an infrastructure designed to utilize abundant petroleum and an integrated society. We all knew we had to rework our infrastructure and our attitudes in a hurry; so we didn't have the luxury of pointing fingers for past wrongs. Much like in the government zone, our leaders made sure everyone knew how vulnerable we were."

" **The danger was real," I point out.**

"No argument from me," he agrees. "Almost as bad as the leaders claimed! Look, I'm not criticizing either the President or my leaders for exaggerating the threat a little; it got everyone on the same page. Going back on the subject, we really did the same thing that you did, on a smaller scale. We figured out what asserts we had available, keeping in mind that skills are an asset, and went to work. It was late that first spring when we realized that as long as we worked hard, we were going to be able to feed, clothe and house ourselves. We also realized that we were going to be able to defend ourselves, as long as we stuck together. We also helped stage a couple of actions with the Air Force."

" **You cooperated with the government in exile?" I'm apparently unable to conceal my shock.**

"I can't believe this! You mean the government in exile didn't say what they were doing and how...Of course!" Mr. M shakes his head and chuckles. "I have to hand it to your propaganda boys! They must've kept these actions secret, in case they didn't work out. Let's just say that at the start of that first summer, we were very loyal. The government in exile was communicating with us via radio, so we knew that there was a large, safe area on the west coast where you were organizing a force to take back the nation. We wanted to assist in any way we could."

"Well, any force moving west to east across the country, across the northern plains, will have to cross the Missouri River. There are six major dams on the river, and nobody had maintained them for almost a year. According to the Department of the Interior, the crews on these dams had opened the turbine shafts before being overrun, but nobody knew if they had been clogged or not. If they had, if the melt water from the Rocky Mountain thaw were to sweep down and overtop one or more of these dams, it would wipe out any holdout areas downstream...including Omaha. "

"The department needed to open the floodgates before the thaw hit the upper mountains," he continues. "But they needed bases within helicopter range of the dams. To assist, we marched out and re-occupied Ellsworth Air Force Base and repaired the runways. We held it while the Air Force flew in the helicopters, fuel, technicians and guards they needed. From Ellsworth, they were able to open the floodgates at the Oahe Dam near Pierre and the Big Bend Dam near Fort Thompson. We continued to hold the base as the crews returned, packed up their gear and flew back to the west coast."

"We lost some good people holding that base," he adds, his face darkening. "At the time, we thought it was worth it. Now, I find out nobody mentioned the fact that we assisted your forces in making the Missouri River Valley safe. I guess it makes sense; the government wasn't about to tell the populace before acting, since it might have turned into a disaster. The government certainly wasn't going to tell anyone we cooperated afterwards, were they?"

" **I believe we are getting off the topic," I reply, hoping to avoid a rant. "You stated that you were loyal at the beginning of that summer. Were the losses you suffered while assisting the Air Force mission in any way related to the loss of loyalty."**

"It set the stage," Mr. M tells me. "We had just lost some good folks supporting an operation that didn't immediately help our situation. Of course, the Air force had lost some folks on the dams, as well. We thought we were doing the right thing, but when we learned..."

"But I'll get to that!" He snarls, shaking his head as if to force the angry thoughts away. "A few weeks after we abandoned the base and returned to our towns, we got the warning that another horde was coming in, from the east. While some of us assumed that the activity between the dams and the base might have caused the swarm to form, it was irrelevant; we had another attack to fight off."

"They were east of Wall, on Highway 14," he continues, which made it more believable that they had been drawn by the air activity between the base and the dams. Anyway, this one wasn't a single, major mass; it was a series of smaller groups. Again, we formed up and moved out."

"It was trickier this time," he closes his eyes, remembering. "The roads were in bad shape after a freeze-thaw cycle with no maintenance. We didn't have enough vehicles to carry everyone out to where we wanted to fight the swarm; so we used the few we had to carry our logistics while the fighters rode bicycles. After a year of non-maintenance, we didn't dare take the vehicles on any of the bridges before testing them. All in all, it was a very slow trip out east. We had another shock before we got to Wall...we heard that the horde actually followed Highway 14, including its turns, and were closing on Interstate 90."

"The Interstate bridge over the Cheyenne was too dangerous to take the vehicles over," he smiles wistfully. "A harsh winter with no maintenance...and the fire we had started the year previously had taken their toll. Still, it was sturdy enough for bicycle traffic so we set up a logistics base on the west bank, left a few guards, and pushed on to the east. We ran into Zack a little to the east of Wall."

"This was more a series of small battles than a big firefight," he informs me. "Like I said, there were a series of smaller groups, which really tested our endurance. We set up a kill zone, started shooting and let Zack come to us. None of the individual fights was all that bad, but we were really getting worn out by the time we finished off the last of them...probably because we had to dedicate about a quarter of our force to shuttling ammunition in from our camp west of the river. After the last battle was over, my battalion was in charge of sweeping the surrounding area for any other Zacks...and we found another of those titanium bicycles. This one was in a culvert under Highway 14."

"I was puzzled about this one, we all were." While his words are calm, his expression is anything but. "The one we found south of Hot Springs, in the river, seemed to make sense. Someone was trying to cross the river somewhere upstream and either drowned or lost the bike. It eventually found its way to where we found it; but in a culvert? If you're trying to outrun Zack, why leave a really good bike behind? For that matter, why hide the bike at all? Zack doesn't use them. The only thing we could guess was that some traveler was out on the road, hid in the shelter with his bike, got bit and shambled off. It wasn't a good theory, but it was the best we could come up with. About the time we finished our sweep, we got word that yet another horde was moving in on the Black Hills, this time from the west.

" _ **How did you get this information?" I ask.**_

"Glad you asked," he smiles. "There were actually several sources. The most valuable source was other holdout areas. In this case, it was a group of redbloods who were hiding in Cheyenne. They had a ham radio and reported that a large group was heading north on Interstate 25. Of course, that was a couple of weeks before our latest battle, outside of Wall."

"The holdouts in Cheyenne didn't survive the summer," he shakes his head. "That was the really rough on our ham radio operators...constantly exchanging information with all the other groups, getting to know the other operators, then noting the other stations going off the air, one at a time."

"Anyway, the second source was the satellites. The tech-heads in our group managed to link into at least some of them. We couldn't spot individual Zacks all that well, and it wasn't much use for trying to spot hordes, but it worked great for tracking hordes we had already identified."

"The final source was the government in exile," understandably, Mr. M's attitude isn't cheerful at this point. "They were operating drones and running a network of spotters and satellites much more extensive than ours. Anyway, we were talking about this horde approaching from the west. The group in Cheyenne reported it passing through their city so our tech-heads started to use the satellites to track it. It wasn't an exact operation...the satellites weren't always overhead. Whenever we learned about a horde the techies spotted it on satellite, calculated the speed and direction, then tried to spot it again the next time a satellite had line-of-site. So, back to this latest horde. The tech-heads thought it would follow Interstate 25 on north and bypass the Black Hills area completely. However, for some reason it turned east onto Highway 20, then turned north again at Lusk. It was heading for Newcastle."

"I won't go into details about that fight," he sighs. The important thing is that we managed to get to Newcastle before the swarm, set up an engagement area and lured Zack into it. There were ebbs and flows in the fight. I guess it makes sense, since Zack had covered some rough country. The more...functional...zombies were able to cover it fairly well while the damaged ones were slowed. As a result, the horde was really a strung out column with every one of 'em traveling at a slightly different speed. But enough of that!"

Now, Mr. M takes several deep breaths before continuing, "once we finished off the horde, my commander pulled my battalion into reserve while two other units conducted a sweep of the area, looking for any stragglers. The commander called me to his post and told me he had a mission for my battalion. He sent us south on a search mission. I can still remember the order, 'Travel south on Highway 85 until you reach the intersection with Highway 18. At this point, turn east and search the roadway, paying particular attention to the culverts. Should you find anything that shouldn't be there, halt the search and bring the item to my headquarters in Rapid City. Tell your battalion that this is a routine patrol. They'll know better, but tell them that this is the story and they must not tell anyone what they found.'"

"I was confused, of course," he smiles. "After all, two years into the zombie apocalypse, pretty much everything doesn't belong where it is. But I trusted my commander and I trusted that if anything prompted him to keep secrets, it must be serious. My battalion spent the day prepping for the trip and took off the next morning. It took us two days to get to Highway 18 since we ran into more than just a couple of Zacks; stragglers from the swarm we had just eliminated. We formed a line extending a half-mile beyond the road on both sides and marched east, checking every culvert and ditch. The second day into the search, seven miles outside of Edgemont, we found another titanium bike. I figured that this was what my commander had sent me to find, so I packed it into one of the trailers, mounted my battalion and ordered best time to Rapid. The commander was waiting for me."

"I remember that I had that bike wrapped in a tarp," he tells me, his voice now tight and devoid of emotion. "I carried it into my commander's office and he chased everyone else out before he let me unwrap it. When I did, he...well, he was the most emotionless man I had ever met but he actually sobbed."

"'So it's true,' he gasped at me' The government betrayed us. They've been diverting the hordes at us."

 _ **At this time, another guard enters the room and informs us that our interview time is over for the day. I confess to being more than a little confused and aggravated as I leave, determined to gain more answers tomorrow.**_


	3. Chapter 3 Proof and Consequences

PROOF

 _ **I admit to being more tense coming into this meeting than my previous interviews. If I am correct, today I will learn what I have sought; why the Black Hills revolted. However, I suspect that I will not like the answers I obtain. While I know that my President and his advisers made some hard decisions during the dark days of infestation and the great offensive, I was not aware of any betrayals. Is Mr. M lying, did the residents of the Black Hills misinterpret their findings, or did my government, the entity I have served faithfully, truly betray those trapped in the gray zone?**_

 _ **Mr. M is already present when I enter the interview room. As before, Mr. M is shackled to the floor, but only a single guard is present. I look pointedly at the guard, a major, hoping to determine if the message I had sent the night before; the message that went directly to the President, had its intended effect.**_

"My orders have changed," the officer tells me, which indicates the success of my protest. "The whole point of your interview is to uncover the truth, and we can't really do this by trying to control what's being said. I have to point out that what is said here is not to be repeated."

"I guess only certain people are supposed to know the truth," Mr. M smiles. "I wonder if the two NCOs who were with us yesterday have been told not to talk about the fact that the government in exile actually cooperated with the Black Hills?"

 _ **The major shows no inclination to answer Mr. M.**_

"Don't worry," Mr. M waves at the officer. "I'm not about to make life rough on the troops by saying things they might not need to know. After all, if one of them were to start repeating certain distasteful truths, the government might have to crack down, or something."

" **I believe we would be best served by continuing," I suggest. Both Mr. M and the guard nod their agreement.**

" **Very well," I continue, in an effort to keep us on this proper course of action. "When we left off last time, you stated that your commander told you you had been betrayed. Did he offer you any proof?"**

"You better believe it!" Mr. M nods. "In fact, he showed me the proof so I could draw my own conclusions."

"Before we start, I want you to understand something the Major here probably already knows. "Mr. M nods to the guard before continuing. "When conducting covert operations, you have to be careful about what you tell the people you send out to perform the mission. If you don't give them enough information, they won't get the job done. If you tell them too much and they're captured, the other side learns more than you want him to learn."

"The only problem with telling somebody the right amount of information is that you want smart, capable people on these special missions," he continues, now looking at me.

" _ **I don't see this as a problem," I interrupt.**_

"That's because you're only thinking of the mission," Mr. M answers. "And not about the consequences. You see, when you brief a smart, capable, motivated soldier to do a job, he's going to do whatever he needs to do, in order to do it. That means that if you send him out to do something dangerous or right down strange, he's going to ask _why_ he's doing it, so that he can meet your intent. If you tell him it's need to know, he's probably going to figure out why he's doing what he's doing."

" _ **This makes sense to me."**_

"So now, have you ever tried to lie when you're really, really drunk?"

" _ **I don't see what this has to do with this situation."**_

"More than you think," Mr. M smirks at me. The guard looks distinctly uncomfortable, but makes no move to silence the prisoner. "You see, when you really get drunk off your ass, it gets really hard to keep track of the alternate reality you made up. Not to mention, your inhibitions start to drop, which means you're more likely to talk when you shouldn't."

" _ **Again, I fail to see the relevance..."**_

"About the time we were shooting up the horde outside of Newcastle," he interrupts me. "A straggler stumbled into an outpost by Edgemont. There was nothing unusual about that; the odd survivor stumbled in every once in awhile. We'd treat their wounds, put a hot meal into them and ask them if they wanted to stay. If they were willing to work with us, we'd watch 'em for a couple of weeks, just to make sure they weren't scouting us out for the local bandits. Anyway, this particular straggler had broken his ankle out on the road and had walked in on the splint. The injury had swollen up, so he was both in agony and delirious."

"You have to understand that our store of medicine was pretty sparse," he continued. "So we couldn't send much to the outposts. Instead, most of our pain relievers were of the liquid, distilled sort; if you understand me."

 _ **I nod.**_

"Okay, so the guards at the outpost poured some moonshine down this straggler's throat, so the medic could cut off his splint without prompting a scream you could hear three miles away. One of the other guards helped out by talking to the man, trying to distract him from what was going on. Well, I guess the combination of his pride, his fever, the fact that he had accomplished a very rough job and had a belly full of 'shine meant that he just couldn't keep his mouth shut."

Now, Mr. M stares directly at me, his face bleak. "He told the guards that he was actually a soldier for the government in exile According to him, his orders were to turn the horde; first east, away from Denver and then north, towards Newcastle. For this, the government had parachuted him in front of the horde, with a rifle and a high-tech bicycle. He showed himself to the leading ghouls and of course, they followed him east on Highway 20. Using that bike, he was able to get well ahead of it and make sure it was still following him. Once he reached Lusk, he waited until they showed up then let them see him heading north. Of course they followed him. All he had to then was get to Highway 18, then conceal himself and make sure they kept going north. After that, he headed for Edgemont, where he would be just another straggler."

"Of course, it wasn't that simple for him," the prisoner continues. "He had to contend with Zack, bandits, and a potentially suspicious bunch in the Black Hills. He had to look and act the part of a survivor who'd been flushed out of his sanctuary. So he rode that bike until he was well clear of the horde but still outside where his government knew we were patrolling. Once there, he hid the bike and got off the road, intending on traveling cross-country until he reached Edgemont. At some point, he took a tumble, messed up his ankle, stumbled into the Black Hills and made history."

 _ **"I'm assuming you didn't revolt over this one incident," I counter. "Furthermore, what proof did you have, other than the ravings of a man you admitted was incoherent, for several reasons, when he made these claims?"**_

"Fair questions," Mr. M concedes. "First of all, he didn't stop talking when he raved about his mission. Remember when I told you about smart operatives figuring out _why_ you send them out? Yeah, this man had made some deductions and he blurted them out with everything else. Of course, a lot of it was raving, like you said, but the guards at the post listened to everything he said and did their best to sort it out. He had been **ordered** to turn the horde east onto Highway 20; he had been **ordered** to turn the horde north at Lusk and make sure it continued to go north past the intersection with Highway 18. He was ordered to then make his way to the Black Hills and keep his mouth shut. I'm sure he had more orders, but he kept quiet after this. "

"This where his orders stopped and his reasoning began," Mr. M continues. "He was a soldier, so he knew that the government in exile was having enough trouble maintaining order in the so-called safe zone, west of the Rockies. In particular, the government forces were trying to hold Denver, as an outpost on the east slope and were having a real rough time. Well, our raving prisoner figured out that he was turning the horde away from the safe zone. Furthermore, he figured out that he was turning it towards us, so it wouldn't home in on other holdout areas, such as Omaha. Since he was under orders to not tell anyone in the Black Hills what he had done, he knew that you guys had decided that we weren't supposed to know that you were using us to keep some of the heat off of you."

 _ **"While this story sounds...somewhat plausible...I see one major flaw," I inform him. "Your band in the Black Hills didn't have a fraction of the manpower that the government in exile could mass. This means that any threat you could handle, the government could handle much more easily. Why would the government divert hordes in your direction if it could handle them, more efficiently, itself?"**_

"We argued _that_ one long and hard," Mr. M informs me. "The only thing we could think of was that we were expendable. Why take on more difficulties, more hordes, if you can send them off somewhere else? Why risk additional attacks; knowing that one could become the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back, when you don't have to? Why risk endangering and alienating your power base, when you can shift the risk to _those people_ a couple hundred miles to the east?"

"I have a question," the guard interrupts. "Why divert the horde towards anybody? If the horde was heading north, why not let it go until it hit the arctic circle and froze?"

 _ **I confess that I hadn't thought about this possibility. Rather than be irritated by the guard for speaking, when he is not supposed to interrupt, I am grateful that he brings another perspective to the interview.**_

"We argued that one, as well," Mr. M shows no sign that he is irritated at having a second questioner. "It didn't take us as long to argue this one out. We were, and continue to be, sure that whomever decided to divert the hordes towards us didn't want to take the risk of them wandering off somewhere they couldn't be observed, then changing direction and showing up where they weren't expected."

 _ **"I don't understand," I inform him. "Aren't the ghouls predictable?"**_

"Only under certain circumstances," he informs me. "It's when Zack was away from specific situations that nobody knew what he would do."

The major's questioning expression matches my confusion. Mr. M notes that we don't understand.

"We observed them as best we could," he explains. "I'm sure the government in exile did, as well, but it appears that neither of you had much experience dealing with Zack."

"I fought several engagements," the Major states. "But the I only encountered them when they were attacking."

 _ **"I never fought them," I admit. "So you are correct, I have no experience."**_

"Fair enough, it's like this," Mr. M explains. "Whenever Zack spotted prey, he attacked an let out a very loud moan. In the Black Hills, we referred to this loud moan as stage one. I'm certain your own forces have their own term."

 _ **"Since neither the Major or myself are familiar with the information you're providing, feel free to use your own terms."**_

"This is one of the certain rules we learned when dealing with Zack," Mr. M continues, nodding at my last statement. "Zack always... _ALWAYS_...pursues and lets out a loud moan when he sees or hears prey. If Zack hears the stage one, he lets out a lower moan, what we called a stage two, and takes off in the direction of the stage one. When Zack hears a stage two, he lets out another stage two and takes off after the one he heard. These are hard and fast rules and have a priority. For Zack, hearing and seeing takes priority over a stage one, which takes priority over a stage two."

"Beyond this, Zack becomes unpredictable," he now explains. "When Zack heard a stage two, he would pursue for a limited amount of time before pausing. If he heard another moan, he'd take up the pursuit again. The problem was, every Zack was different when it came to how long he would maintain the pursuit when the moans went away. Some keep going for hours, some for a few minutes, there was no way of predicting the exact time."

"Also, the different Zacks acted differently once they broke off pursuit. Most of the time, when the moans stopped and Zack stopped pursuing, he'd keep going in roughly the original direction without the moan. Every so often, however, you'd run into one that would simply stop, or one that would take another direction at random, and keep walking. We never found a way to predict what any particular Zack would do when the...pursuit cues...stopped."

 _"I take it you were involved in trying to predict how the ghouls would react?" I ask._

"I did a lot of personal observation," he responds. "One of the rewards of coming up with the bicycle infantry concept was that my units...fast moving and relatively quiet...were ideal to observe Zack when he wasn't on the attack."

"What else did you observe?" The Major asks, with a certain professional curiosity.

"That he was unpredictable when the pursuit cues were gone," the prisoner shrugs his shoulders. "Say you have a Zack out on a road and he's on the move. Usually, he followed the easiest path in his general direction of travel but occasionally, you'd find one who wouldn't follow this rule. I've seen Zacks walk off of a road, across a ditch, hit a barbed wire fence then walk along the fence, sawing a chunk out of their torsos while doing so. I've seen some Zacks try to pursue flying birds with a stage one moan, I've seen some Zacks simply change their direction of travel to try to follow a flying bird and I've seen some Zacks completely ignore flying birds."

"Finally, Zacks don't react predictably to each other or signs of civilization," he concludes. "When two wandering Zacks encounter each other; they may ignore each other, one might follow the other or one or both might just stop. Also, if Zack encounters buildings or cars they may ignore them or they may investigate; we never found a way to predict this."

"So this takes us back to the original question; why didn't the genius who decided to divert the hordes just send them off to where they wouldn't bother anyone? The answer we came up with was that nobody could tell what the horde would do. In the case of the one we fought outside of Newcastle, it was originally heading north out of Cheyenne. If I was protecting the safe areas, and preferred that others die instead of those around me, I'd be in a bit of a pickle. You see, there weren't any redblood areas for a couple hundred miles, once the swarm cleared Cheyenne so there wasn't a really reliable method of keeping an eye on it. While it might stay on Interstate 25 all the way to I-90, and then on to the nearest settled area in Bozeman, what if it didn't? What if a lead Zack spotted some stupid bird and the rest followed him? What if they went off the road and into the back country, where observation was even more difficult? What if a swarm of a couple hundred Zacks suddenly emerged from the hills outside of Fort Collins?"

"No, whomever was making the decisions was thinking rationally, may he burn in Hell for it, and wanted to eliminate the damned swarm rather than risk it finding him at a later date."

 _ **"While logical, that seems a rather large, mental leap," I point out. "Was your decision to declare secession based upon one raving man and a few expensive bicycles?"**_

"No, we wanted more proof," he counters. "And getting it was rough. We didn't want to let anyone know that we were potentially on to the fact that we were being set up...assuming we were being set up. My superiors worked with our tech-heads and ham radio operators. They wanted to locate a swarm that was heading roughly our way, but from a long, long way away. It took several weeks but they finally located a swarm heading east on I-90, outside of Rochester, MN."

"We were ready to act," his voice is devoid of emotion as he speaks. "We had formed several squads of bicycle infantry; all people who had lived in the Black Hills for years before the panic. I led the first squad east. Crossing the Missouri at Chamberlain wasn't a whole lot of fun, since we didn't trust the bridge and had to patch up a leaky old boat we found, but we did it. We reached the intersection of I-90 and Highway 81, outside of Mitchell. Once there we checked in with HQ, we had a pedal-powered shortwave radio, and received the code to execute our plan."

"I took the shots myself. Standing in the middle of Highway 81, south of I-90, I picked off a half-dozen of the ghouls. There wasn't any reason to do so," he offers an embarrassed grin. "All I needed to do was let them see me, but I guess I couldn't help but go Hollywood. Anyway, the moan went up and Zack started after me. My squad-mates had already picked out several good hiding spots, so we pedaled south, outrunning Zack, and laid low. It was actually nerve-wracking to stay there, hidden in a shelter belt a half-mile off of Highway 81 for four days while the swarm filed past. If a couple of the ghouls had wandered away at the right time, stumbled on us and started to moan, we would've had the whole bunch coming down on us. Finally, the road was clear so we were free to make our best way back to Rapid City, and wait for news."

" **News?" I prompt.**

News from the other teams that went out," he answers. "You see, while I was leading my squad out to turn the swarm, other teams were heading out to take up hidden positions at key crossroads. Two more teams had taken up position on Highway 81. The first, observing the intersection of Highways 81 and 44, reported that the horde continued south at the intersection. This made us question our suspicions, as Highway 44 was the straightest route west."

"But another team was observing the intersection of 81 and 18, north of what was left of Yankton, " he continues. "My team had just reached Rapid City when the report came in. The team reported an aircraft passing overhead the night before. The next morning, they spotted a lone bicyclist heading north on 81, who stopped and hid near the intersection. Early that afternoon, the leading ghouls appeared and the cyclist broke cover and let them spot him. As soon as they started to moan, he took off riding, slowly, west on Highway 18. Of course, the whole horde followed."

"We didn't have that many teams out and you don't want to travel in the open near a horde, so we lost contact with both the cyclist and the horde for over a week. Our next contact came from a team we had watching the Platte-Winner Bridge, where Highway 44 crosses the Missouri. The lone cyclist appeared on the east bank and waited several hours before the lead ghouls appeared. He then rode to the center of the bridge and waited until they spotted him. Then, he rode to the west bank and waited again. Once he was sure that the main body was crossing the bridge, he rode off west at what appeared to be a comfortable pace. We lost contact, again, when the last of the horde passed out of this team's line of site."

"We had another two weeks of waiting after that," he continues. "Before the cyclist appeared again. This time, a hidden team outside the abandoned town of Oelrichs, where Highway 18 meets Highway 79, reported a lone cyclist approaching from the east. He stopped at the intersection and waited several hours. When the lead ghouls appeared, he showed himself again and took off north on 79. Again, the ghouls followed him."

"We didn't spot him after that," Mr. M informs me. "But that night, the government in exile contacted us by radio and let us know that they had spotted a horde on Highway 18, which had just turned north onto 79. We had another fight, again at the Cheyenne River Crossing outside of Hot Springs. A week later, my superior personally interviewed and examined all refugees that had appeared after we lost track of the cyclist. There were eight refugees and while all of them looked scruffy, one man had very well toned leg muscles. Mr. Strong Legs had stumbled into Hot Springs from the South, so I was dispatched with a company to search the roads to the south of Hot Springs. Three days later, off of Cascade Road, South of Hot Springs, we found another abandoned, high-tech bike. This time, I kept up the search. Two days later after we found the bike, we found a small, high-tech radio transceiver, buried not far from the bike. Our questions had been answered, we were being betrayed."

DECISONS and CONSEQUENCES

"The schedules are out the window," the Major informs both myself and Mr. M. "We will continue this interview until either of you get fatigued."

 _ **"Thank you," I tell the guard. "Mr. M., are you willing to continue?"**_

"I'm ready to keep talking, probably well past the point where you'll be ready to listen." The prisoner stretches, then wriggles a little in his chair.

 _ **"Very well, we will continue," I decide. "What actions did you take upon obtaining proof that the government in exile was diverting the hordes towards you?"**_

"A lot of us still didn't want to believe it," he tells me. "Those of us who had collected the evidence argued for days: Could there be a faction doing this, with the government not knowing about it? No, there was no way a private faction could arrange for the transportation and communication without the government knowing about it. Could it be a faction within the government, and could the President not be aware of it? No, the President had to know and if he didn't, was he _really_ in control of anything? The arguments went on and on. Finally, we concluded that this had to be an official, if maybe secret, policy of the government in exile. Of course that brought up another big question; what do we do about it?"

"Those arguments were even more heated, because we didn't know what the government would do once they learned that we found out. Would they break off all contact with us? Would they divert even more hordes in our direction? Would they tell other holdout areas that we had gone rogue? Would they attack us?"

"Attack?" The Major asks. "At that time, force projection into the gray zone was extremely difficult."

"You're thinking of fighting Zack," Mr. M corrects him. "We didn't think we'd be facing troops or conventional bombs, but we would be very vulnerable to a chemical strike, for example. It was these arguments that actually brought up additional proof that the government itself was pulling shenanigans on us."

"How was that?"

"While we were discussing if, and how, the government would respond to our accusations, we realized that the government was controlling, subtly, our information. While the government never jammed our ham radio broadcasts, to the best of our knowledge, they didn't provide us with the call signs and favored frequencies and schedules of other holdout areas; they simply offered to relay messages. The same went for the spy satellites; while they didn't prevent us from downloading from satellites, they didn't give us information so we could access additional satellites, they simply relayed observations on to us. It was then that we realized that the government was trying to control what we knew, while not appearing to do so."

"But back to the discussion at hand. After days of arguing back and forth, we decided that for good or ill, we had to bring this up to our local, elected officials. We gathered up our evidence and the head of the Black Hills Defense Force presented it to the governor. I wasn't there, but I heard that there was another week of the same arguments the military had: Can it be true? Can it be a misunderstanding? What will happen to us? What do we do? I have to admire the governor for the decision he made; he decided that it was too big of a decision to leave to the political leadership. He called a meeting of all citizens, even though we were pretty sure that you guys had some spies in among us, and you'd learn we were on to you pretty quick."

"Of course, we couldn't fit everyone into one big lecture hall," he smiles a little. "Instead, the governor called all the local mayors together and presented the evidence we had discovered. He then asked each of them to return to their own towns and have a series of town hall meetings. Now, you'll remember that at the end of the first year, we escorted the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation to Rapid City? Well, the governor included their mayor, as well. That would have some powerful consequences later on."

"Anyway, the arguments at the town meeting level made the arguments we had in the defense force, and in the local government, seem tame by comparison. Of course, we couldn't devote are entire time to arguing about this; spring had come and we needed to plant if we wanted to eat. We were also pretty sure that the government in the free zone had to have figured out that we were on to them, but since they didn't mention anything, we didn't bring it up, either. Of course, Zack was around as well, so we had to occasionally deal with the hordes. All told, when we weren't farming, building or shooting, we were arguing. That went on for weeks. Finally, the governor made a decision; during the summer, the individual towns would come to a decision about what to do. Each town would then select delegates to meet in Rapid City, after the first frost, and come up with a decision that would later be ratified by a popular vote."

 _ **"This sounds cumbersome."**_

"It was, but it was a way to make sure that everyone had a voice," Mr. M shrugs again. He shifts slightly in his chair, once again before continuing to speak. "That summer was a hectic time. Like I said, arguing our situation and what to do about it became our most popular occupation. Bear in mind that I was one of the men who had actually collected evidence, so I got to take a bicycle tour of a pretty good chuck of the Black Hills, even when there was no fighting."

 _ **"Why's this?"**_

"People wanted to ask questions and I had no problem showing up to a town hall meeting and answering them. For instance, some folks wanted to know if the high-tech bikes I found were in good repair or battered. Some folks called me a liar to my face, accusing me of trying to start a revolt for no good reason. Others wanted to know when I had moved to Rapid City, trying to see if I was setting them up rather than working with them. It was a serious decision, so they deserved answers. Of course, what really strengthened my testimony is the pure, dumb luck that turned me into a leftie."

 _ **"And that was..."**_

"In the middle of August, some folks in Custer wanted to hear my story about what I had found. We didn't have an oncoming horde, so my commander assigned a squad to accompany me; we never went out-of-town alone, and sent me on my way. Since we only used our limited fuel for vital tasks, such as food production, the squad and I went via bike. Another thing about travel between towns; we always contacted folks at the destination, so they'd know when to expect us. That way, if someone went missing, someone else would go looking. My original plan was to leave on Wednesday, attend the meeting on Thursday, then come back by a different route on Friday. On Wednesday morning, however, one of my squad's kids had the flu and he had to stay home to look after her. No big deal, we contacted Custer and said that we'd leave Thursday and push the pace a little bit. The meeting was scheduled for the evening, anyway. The folks at Custer understood. They had planned on sending a patrol out on Highway 16 to meet us but it hadn't left yet and they changed the schedule for Thursday."

"We left right when the sun came up on Thursday," he continues. "We made some pretty good time, even though the guy with the sick kid was suffering from sleep deprivation. We went by the abandoned town of Rockerville, said hello to the folks in Hill City and continued towards Custer. Around the old border between Pennington and Custer counties, we spooked a pheasant out of the tall grass in the ditch. Keep in mind, we were all a little on-edge, since Zack tended to show up when you didn't expect him, so I flinched and veered off to my left."

"Because of this, the bullet that should have hit me in the sternum shattered my right humerus."

"We'd fought the occasional bandit, as well as Zack, so we weren't complete idiots," he tells us, now much more serious. "We dove into the tall grass along the ditch. I was in a great deal of pain and bleeding, so one of the squad helped me to better cover while the rest of the squad took up arms and scattered. Another bullet hit the dirt just inches from me; the marksman couldn't see us in the tall grass but could make some guesses. By the time the third shot came along, the rest of the squad had reached the treeline and spotted the muzzle flash."

"I wasn't paying to close of attention, since our makeshift medic was trying to keep me alive, but the rest of the squad used fire and maneuver to stalk the sniper. After maybe a half hour of this, there were shouts from the sniper's direction, followed by a couple more shots. Then there were more shouts, from the Custer patrol. It seems they heard the shots, had the common sense to get off their bikes to investigate and came up on the sniper from behind. If he'd used his head, he probably could have convinced them that we started it but as soon as one of them challenged him, he spun and fired. He missed, two of the Custer patrol missed, but three more of the Custer patrol didn't."

"Well, the patrol and the rest of my squad loaded me and the sniper's body onto a couple of trailers and made their best time into Custer, where there were a couple of doctors. We didn't have exactly state of the art medicine, so while they were able to save my life, they couldn't save my arm; I woke up as a southpaw in training. However, the real storm hit when the townsfolk identified the sniper."

"It seems the guy worked in the town's ham radio station," he says, his better mood returning. "He was working when I called in my original travel plan, on Tuesday. When he left the radio station, late that night, he complained about flu-like symptoms to the night guard before he left. Funny thing is, nobody saw him at home Wednesday and obviously, he wasn't at home on Thursday, either. Folks started to ask about him a little more and it turns out he wasn't a long-time resident of Custer; he was a refugee that had shown up the previous summer in the middle of the fighting around Sundance."

 _ **"So you suspect that he diverted the horde towards the Black Hills, then tried to silence you?"**_

"I can't make any claims about him diverting the horde but the folks in Custer recalled everything they knew about him; where he went, what he did, everything. It turns out he had a knack for working with ham radios and volunteered to move to Custer, from Sundance, when he heard that they were short-handed in the communications department. He spent a lot of time with the radios, talking to other stations when nobody else was around. In fact, the was at the radio station late on Tuesday night. When we talked to the radio operators in Rapid City and Spearfish, they reported long strings of numbers being transmitted by Morse Code about the time he was on duty, alone."

 _ **"So you think he reported to someone that you'd be traveling alone, and received coded instructions to eliminate you?"**_

"I suspect it, of course," Mr. M shrugs. "But I can't prove it. What I can say is that the same operators in Rapid City and Spearfish said that hearing long strings of numbers wasn't terribly unusual. However, prior to this incident, once a week or so they'd hear them very loud, like the transmitter was either very powerful or relatively close. The number transmissions they had heard that Tuesday had been half powerful and half weaker, like a nearby station was exchanging coded messages with a more distant station. After Tuesday, while strings of numbers continued to be transmitted, there were no more local transmissions. I'll let you draw your own conclusions."

 _ **"May I assume that your attempted assassination swayed the vote?"**_

"I assume that it did," he replies. "At the time, I was more distracted by my new hobby, which consisted of fading into and out of coherence before adapting to life as a southpaw. My commander had a new hobby as well, putting a lid on the witch-hunt for more spies. Anyway, I had just gotten back into shape to the point where I could make the trip back to Rapid City when the first frosts hit and the delegates met to decide what to do about our government turning Zack onto us."

"Since I still wasn't in the best traveling condition, my commander had me help the security detail for the meetings." He shakes his head, "I like to think of myself as a patient man, but guarding a group of politicians had me grinding my teeth in frustration. While the populace had pretty much agreed that the feds had betrayed us, there was a great deal of disagreement about what to do about it. On one end of the spectrum, a group wanted to ignore it, hold out and hope everything would return to normal once the great offensive got underway. On the other end, some wanted to declare war on the feds and actively attack any government activity. Of course, both were in the minority, most folks and delegates were more moderate."

 _ **"Just what levels of moderation were present?" I ask. "It seems that this betrayal, and your assassination attempt, would be extremely polarizing."**_

"It all came down to what consequences we could expect," he answers. "The delegates with the pacifist stance didn't exactly want the feds to get away with it; they didn't want to risk retribution. The hawks weren't necessarily out to crush the government in exile; they thought the feds would be distracted with their own Zack problems that we could force concessions. At the end of the day, the delegates made their decision and the general population voted, overwhelmingly, to execute the decision."

" _ **And the decision was to declare independence?"**_

"What?" Mr. M is clearly stunned. "We didn't declare independence at that time! We had our governor contact the president and...you mean you didn't know about the formal protest?"

 _ **Both myself and the major shake our heads.**_

"More information suppressed," Mr. M shakes his head in disgust. "You might want to check some communications records to confirm what I'm about to tell you. I can't recall the exact date but it was in Mid-November that our governor, in accordance with the vote, requested a private teleconference with the president. I don't recall the exact verbiage but when he got his virtual appointment, he informed the President that we were aware that the government was secretly diverting the enemy towards us. He used some political-speak and said that if the government didn't stop doing so, there would be 'serious consequences for our relations, at such time when the enemy was driven away.'"

"One moment," the guard interrupts. "How did you know this, if it was a private teleconference? Did you have your ear at the door?"

"No, one of our tech-heads decided to both record the conversation and broadcast it live over what was left of our television and radio networks." Mr. M barks a humorless laugh. "The ironic thing is, she didn't believe that the government was directing the hordes our way. She thought that if she broadcast the conversation live, the populace would see that the government wasn't doing this and it was all fear-mongering and planted evidence, by locals who wanted to set up their own little empire."

" _ **I assume that this broadcast had the opposite effect."**_

"You assume correctly. Your president picked a really lousy time to be completely honest. He told the governor that he had done what he had done for the good of the entire country, not just a small slice in the middle of nowhere. He then told the governor to attend to his own area of concern and to quit worrying about what was beyond his control."

" _THAT_ got the governor riled up something fierce," Mr. M shakes his head with a somewhat pained smile. "He told the president that if the government was going to keep diverting the ghouls at us, could they at least give us some more ammunition and medicine, since we were doing their fighting for them. _THAT_ got the president riled up in return. He told the governor that the Black Hills was an insignificant spec of land and he, the president, would remember who helped when his forces moved east. At that point, the president killed the line. Everyone in the Black Hills who had seen the broadcast was dumbstruck. The president had all but admitted that he was fully aware, even approved of, the hordes being diverted our way and he expected us to just put up with it."

" _ **There was fighting in the safe zone, as well," I point out. "You were hardly the only ones that had to put up with the ghouls."**_

"I'm not saying things weren't rough in the safe zone," Mr. M counters. "But we weren't sending some of our problems your way! Do yourself a favor, once this is all over and I'm safely in the ground, see if you can use your influence to find out if the government in exile was diverting hordes to any of the other holdout areas."

" _ **I think we're getting far afield," I reply. "I'd like to get back on topic. You stated that the governor requested more ammunition and medicine from the president. Why medicine? I understand that there has never been any cure for Solanum. Why did you need medicine?"**_

"Fighting generates all sorts of secondary health problems," Mr. M explains. "Combat operations mean doing dangerous, strenuous physical activity in a filthy environment. That means all sorts of cuts, infections and diseases, like cholera, that spread when you have other things to concern you than basic sanitation."

 _ **I glance at the major, who nods.**_

"Not to mention our civilian population," Mr. M continues, while the major confirmed his earlier statement. "Because of the cold weather and lack of fossil fuels, we were forced to live much closer together than we were used to. We were constantly fighting outbreaks of communicable diseases. In addition, we were losing people to diabetes and high blood pressure. We could produce some medicines locally, but we didn't have the pharmaceutical knowledge to make everything we needed."

" _ **So back to your situation. Did this televised conversation prompt you to declare independence?"**_

"Not so much," Mr. M smirks. "It prompted a segment of our population to declare independence, legally."

" _ **That's impossible!" Both myself and the major protest.**_

"Is it? Didn't I say that escorting the native population from Pine Ridge had major consequences? Let's go back to the aftermath of the broadcast conversation. Pretty much everyone realized that we were just a speed bump out in the prairie. The government was going to utilize us, not work with us. Of course, there were huge arguments about what to do. However, the natives had another idea. Roughly a week after the broadcast they appointed an elder...I won't say his name...who requested to address a meeting of town mayors, as well as the governor."

"I was working security at the meeting," he continues. "It was held in the Rapid City Civic Center. All the mayors, each with a couple of assistants, settled in and the elder walked out onto the stage. He didn't waste time."

"' _The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 confirmed that the Lakota Nation owned the Black Hills,_ ' he said. ' _The Federal Government of the United States promptly broke this agreement. Now, the last remnants of this government have left the area. There are no more Federal agents present; the military, the FBI, the Forest Service, all of them have left. Now, this same government has betrayed the Black Hills and those living upon them. For this reason, we, the Lakota Nation, reaffirm our claim to the region. Now that the squatters have left, we, who belong to this land, declare that the mutual ownership of land and people has been restored."_

"The assorted whites had just started to mutter among themselves when the elder continued. ' _As the rightfully elected representative of the Lakota Nation, I extend a welcome to all those of any race who currently live here. Stay here with us and we will defend this territory against all those who would take it from us."_


	4. Chapter 4 Aftermath and Authors notes

AFTERMATH

" _ **I never heard of this," I admit.**_

"Not surprising," Mr. M grumbles. "You never heard of our cooperation on the Missouri River Dams. You never heard of the formal protest. It doesn't surprise me that your government suppressed the details of our secession. Tell me, was it legal?"

" _ **I don't know," I confess. "I'm no lawyer, but I obviously work with several who specialize in treaty matters. I'll investigate this after..." I realize that I'm about to say something awkward.**_

"After I've been executed?" Mr. M displays a sympathetic smile. "Believe it or not, I would like you to do so. I won't be around but it might open a few eyes, might make some of those left behind realize that our decisions weren't the decisions of tyrant wannabes or some such. We had valid reasons for doing what we did."

"But why declare independence?" The major interjects. "Why set yourselves up like that? You had to know that there would be consequences!"

"There were already consequences," the prisoner retorts. "And we wanted everything out in the open and honest. Trust me, there were plenty of arguments after the Native Elder made his declaration but at the end of it all, the vast majority of us realized that your government didn't view us as valuable as its own population. Where did that leave us once your great offensive started?"

" _ **I don't understand," I confess. "Did you think things would be less violent because you openly declared hostilities? Even with this legal maneuver, you had to have known it would mean war!"**_

"War isn't the worst thing," he retorts. "It's terrible, but not the worst!"

"Then what is the worst?" The major asks.

"Subjugation, manipulation," Mr. M informs him. "Being lied to and coerced into doing the tyrant's will. We came to the conclusion that if we fought, at least we'd do someone some good. The government had lied to us and treated us as some sort of 'not quite good enough' for years. What would they have done to us once they re-established their rule?"

" **I still don't understand," I repeat. "What did you think would happen to you? You would have been safe, behind the advancing offensive."**

"Would we have been?" Mr. M snaps back. "The government lied to us and set us up! Let's say for a moment that we would have simply re-integrated. I can just about imagine how things would have worked out. The military would have probably incorporated our defense force into its offensive. I wonder who would have gotten the suicide missions. We had the largest productive agricultural area east of the Rockies. I wonder how much of that output would have been taxed if food ran low in the safe zone. Put bluntly, the government screwed us over from a distance, so what would have happened to us once you were in full, undiluted charge of us?"

" **But you would have been citizens!" I insist. "In an elected government, you don't maintain power by exploiting the voters!"**

"But what if you can keep the voters from knowing that they're being exploited?" He responds, in a calm, practiced tone. "We ran through this argument over and over. In the end, we came to the conclusion that if you were willing to exploit and manipulate us when we were off on our own, you'd have a much easier time when you were in charge of our travel and communications. I explained how we figured out that you were diverting the hordes towards us. Now, if the commanders had been your agents...if the refugee administrators had been your agents...if the radio station operators had been your agents...we never would have figured it out. In the end, we realized that our lives weren't worth as much as yours...at least to you...so we'd be better off not giving you authority over us."

"But you still must have known that the military situation was hopeless," the major interrupts. Again, I'm grateful for his different perspective. "You weren't a bunch of fools, you knew that you didn't have the numbers, equipment or logistics to win."

"Of course we knew," Mr. M replies. "What we miscalculated was how much political doctrine overrode humanity, at least from your government's point of view."

Both myself and the major gesture for him to continue.

"The plan was never to defeat you," he says, weariness flowing through his every word. "The plan was to make it too expensive, too time-consuming, for you to crush us. You had a nation to conquer, why would you waste time and resources on a speck of mountains, some fifty by 100 miles in size? The goal was to convince you that we weren't worth the effort to defeat us."

" **But what about after the war?" I insist. "Surely you knew that if the great offensive bypassed you, we would be back after liberating the continent."**

"Of course we knew," he shrugs. "We were hoping you still wouldn't think we were worth the effort. We knew we would never be completely free of your influence. We were only hoping for some degree of self-determination. Our hope was that our agricultural produce wouldn't be confiscated, our timber clear-cut and dragged off, our young people conscripted and sacrificed to save yours. We didn't realize how much an independent area within your borders would gnaw at the mind of your President...your government. The whole thought that an established area wouldn't leap at the opportunity to rejoin your righteous cause, that the area would even resist you, must have driven the political fundamentalists absolutely up the wall. I can just about picture how they must have rationalized the entire scenario; _We're the ultimate good guys, selflessly serving the needs of humanity. These other guys aren't enthusiastically joining us...how can this be? The only two possible explanations are that we aren't the legitimate representatives of the human race, or they must be completely evil. Well, it isn't possible that we're anything other than selfless, righteous servants of the greater good, so it must be all their fault. Those nasty folks out there must be short-sighted, selfish, sexist, racist, homophobic...oh, and they're probably illiterate religious fundamentalists as well._ "

"Of course, you must have figured that you couldn't just let us be, because our belief system might spread," he continues, now showing grim humor on his face. "And what does that say about your attitude towards your own population? We're the scum of the Earth, but somehow you're concerned that other folks might start thinking the same way we were?"

" **I wasn't privy to the decision to attack your settlement," I inform him. "However, I will admit that the justification we presented to our population was somewhat...extreme."**

"Extreme?" The prisoner is struggling to keep from laughing. In fact, his suppressed laughter forces his forehead to the table. His shoulders heave for a few seconds before he can sit upright again and continue. "Your soldiers seemed shocked that we weren't naked, unwashed and married to our sisters!"

"I'll admit that a lot of the justification we gave our men was pure bullshit," the major now interrupts. "But it doesn't justify some of the actions you took."

"What are you talking about?" the prisoner asks.

"Using arrows, contaminated with zombie flesh," the major snarls. "Making pots of stew, contaminated with the Solanum virus, then acting like you fled before eating. Do you know how many of my troops I had to euthanize because they were infected?"

"Probably about the same number of mine I saw die from napalm, artillery and other weapons we couldn't counter," the prisoner counters, with his voice even. "You used what you had, we used what we had. The only difference between us is that your side won. The only question I have is this, was it worth it?"

" **My presence here should indicate that we don't think so," I point out. "The court hearings detailed our losses in minute detail."**

"I'm not talking about just what you lost during the fighting," he corrects me. "How much time did you waste pacifying the Black Hills?"

" **You know as well as I do that it took roughly three months."**

"Not what I'm talking about," he counters.

" **Then what?"**

"How much did it delay your advance eastwards? Look, you're not a military planner, so you probably aren't looking at all the details. Let's put it this way, I know that your forces used something like an understrength battalion of tanks when they pacified the Black Hills. Now, how many does that mean running on a typical day, fifty?"

"Close enough," the major says, for my benefit.

"How much fuel does a tank consume during a day of moving and fighting, five hundred gallons?"

"More," the major says. "But it's a good number to use for calculations.

"Okay, fifty tanks, each using using five hundred gallons of diesel a day, that's twenty-five thousand gallons of fuel, each day. Add to this the fuel and manpower it took to transport the fuel and other material to the battle zone. How much did this consumption delay your push east?"

" **I don't understand," I confess. "The push east was done on foot."**

"Sure," he smirks at me. "You gathered your forces west of the Rockies, loaded everyone up with the food, medicine, ammunition and other gear needed for four years of fighting, and marched them east."

"What the prisoner is trying to say," the major interrupts, in a more respectful tone. "Is that while the soldiers marched on foot, that advance was dependent upon constant supply from the production centers in the safe zone. Food, ammunition, medicine, replacement weapons and uniforms and other equipment had to be constantly shipped to the fighting front. The battle in the Black Hills halted the advance for several months while we diverted resources to the rebel area. The advance remained halted during the fighting, as we could barely maintain the advanced troops in a passive stance while we fought the rebellion. After this, there was another two months delay while we built up the local stockpiles needed to maintain the advance. Even after all of this, our advance was slowed while we recruited and trained manpower to replace those we lost fighting the rebels."

"And how many loyalists, caught in the gray zone, died while waiting for you?" Mr. M's voice doesn't sound triumphant, merely sad. "How many holdout areas succumbed to starvation, disease, despair or simply being overrun? THAT'S what we were hoping you would consider; how many would die away from the fighting, due to the delays. Our hope was that you'd see the moral need to rescue those areas that were counting on you and bypass our little corner of the world. Afterwards, being tired from the fighting, you'd be reluctant to start another war and grant us some autonomy. I guess political dogma carried more weight in your administration than morality...or even simple mathematics."

He squirms in his seat again.

"From a strictly military standpoint, it was a blunder," the major states, directing his comment more towards me than towards the prisoner. "It isn't my place to assign relative value to the political gains."

"Well, now you know the truth," the prisoner concludes. "It's up to you to analyze the data and decide what to do. If I can provide any input, it wasn't that you directed the hordes against us that caused us to revolt. It wasn't even the fact that you didn't let us know ahead of time. What caused us to revolt was your actions after we found out. You acted like we were supposed to support your decision, despite the fact that we had no input in the decision. In a way, you could call that a case of taxation without representation...you folks decided how to utilize the resources...our lives, labor and material...without any input from us, then expected us to accept it."

" **It was the popular government's decision," I point out. "So didn't that make it your duty to comply?"**

" _That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends_ ," he quotes. " _It is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government_. I won't bother saying the rest, but you should get the idea."

" **I grasp the idea," I admit. "But I don't know the source."**

"The Declaration of Independence." The major informs me.

"A major reason this nation came into being was taxation without representation," the prisoner says. "I guess you could say we experienced something similar. The tax you levied was the effort it took to eliminate the hordes. We expended effort, resources and lives and we had no say in the decision to do so. We knew that we couldn't beat you in a fight; but we felt that pretending nothing had happened was worse than the fight. I guess there's no way of knowing if it really was."

" **Do you have anything else to say, before we conclude this interview?" I ask.**

"Only this," he states. "You could have rescued the situation if you had only acted with a little contrition when we discovered the truth. National level politicians seem to think that loyalty is a commodity they own, not something they must earn or maintain. You had our loyalty when the crisis began, but you threw it away when you betrayed us and made no effort to regain it. If you encounter similar situations in the future, remember that those in the isolated zones are really humans...not property to be ordered and used."

" **I'll convey this to my superiors," I offer.**

"Very well," the prisoner squirms one last time and stands, offering me his hand. "We won't see each other again in this world," he says. "Believe it or not, I wish you well."

" **It would be a poor joke for me to offer you the same," I reply, shaking his hand. "But I hope your remaining time is as peaceful as it can be."**

"Fair enough," he offers me a tight nod and smile, before the guards escort him away for the final time.

 _Mr. President, it may interest you to know that when the prisoner was squirming in his seat, he was removing a small lever on his chair, one that is used to control the chair's height. He secreted this small lever in his clothing when he left and used it that night to open an artery in his neck; meeting his fate on his own terms. The prisoner's body was cremated and the ashes disposed of at a secret location._

 _-FINIS-_

Authors Notes:

Dear reader, I thank you for taking the time to reach the end of this little tale of mine. I would like to take this opportunity to explain my stance.

In the book, _World War Z_ , the author brought up the concept of the Redeker Plan...in which a nation's vital personnel would be evacuated to a relatively safe zone while certain "holdout" regions were supported and encouraged to hold on, thereby sheltering the safe zone as it reorganized and prepared. I'll admit to wondering how a resident of such a holdout area would react when liberated...finding out that he/she was somehow not valuable enough to be evacuated to the "safe" area, but useful enough to serve as a shield to those who were. I also wondered how the "vital" personnel would react when confronted with the fact that their "not quite so vital" counterparts had figured it all out. Would the vital elites act with contrition, arrogance...or something in between? Throw in the fact that I've been a resident of the Black Hills for over two decades, as well as a lifetime resident of flyover country, and the inspiration to write this little tale should be understandable.

I also admit to being more than a little annoyed at certain passages in the companion book, "The Zombie Survival Guide". In particular, those paragraphs in the "Reported Outbreaks" chapter that showed rural residents being unable to cope with the zombie menace. During my childhood in a small town in flyover country, most residents were able to consistently shoot flying pheasants and running jackrabbits; most would walk several miles, for fun, to hunt; most had at least a rudimentary ability to maintain property, structures and vehicles. What I'm trying to say is that the urban resident tends to not give the rural resident, with his seemingly antiquated, rural institutions, enough credit.

In the end, World War Z isn't so much about zombies as it is about people. How would the individual react when faced with the impossible? Would you refuse to believe it was happening? Would you stubbornly try to maintain the life you had always known? Would you just give up? Would you take advantage of the situation for your own gain? Would you try to adapt to your new reality? And, more importantly, would you be able to tell the difference between the six choices I just listed?

That said, I hope you enjoyed my tale and if you wish to discuss my points of view, or anything else about this little jaunt through my imagination, please feel free to drop me a PM.

Best wishes to all

daccu65.


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